DBESS IN RELATION TO HEALTH. i 99 



were best informed, after all, in the matter of color of dress, for health 

 as well as for service. 



Fashion, in these later times, has misled once more, by the intro- 

 duction of the incorrigible black clothing for the outer suit of men 

 and women. The inconvenience of this selection reaches its height in 

 the infliction it imposes on those poor ladies who, after bereavement, 

 think it necessary to clothe themselves in unwholesome folds of inky 

 crape. Next to the suttee, this seems to me the most painful of 

 miseries inflicted on the miserable. Happily, it is, I think, beginning 

 to see its last days. 



V. I would make, in one or two sentences, an observation on the 

 coloring substances that are sometimes introduced into dress, in their 

 relation to health. When the aniline color stuffs were brought in for 

 dyeing under-garments of red or yellow color, the -dyes caused, some- 

 times, where they came into contact with the skin, a local irritation, 

 and now and then even some constitutional derangement. The agents 

 which were at work to produce these conditions were the poisonous 

 dyes called red and yellow coralline. The local action of both these 

 poisons is sharp, and they bring upon the skin a raised eruption of 

 minute round pimples, which I have known to be mistaken for the 

 eruption of measles by the unskilled in diagnosis. The irritation which 

 attends the rash is painful, and if there be much rubbing of the part 

 little vesicles may form and give out a watery discharge. Once I 

 knew an eruption on the chest, caused by a red woolen comforter, 

 attended with much nervous prostration ; but, as a rule, the evil is 

 purely local, the coloring matter being not readily absorbed by the 

 skin. This is fortunate, for the poison would be intense if it were to 

 enter the blood. 



It is necessary at once to remove the colored garment when it is 

 causing the local mischief, and such garments should never be worn 

 until they have been many times rinsed in boiling water. 



VI. Cleanliness in dress, the last passage in my programme, is one 

 on which, to an educated audience, I need not dwell. Health will not 

 be clad in dirty raiment, and those who think it can be will soon find 

 themselves subjected to various minor ailments oppression, dullness, 

 headache, nausea which in themselves and singly seem of little mo- 

 ment, but which affect materially the standard of perfect health by 

 which life is blithely and usefully manifested. The want now most 

 felt among the educated, in our large centers, is the means for getting 

 a due supply of well-washed clean clothes. The laundry is still up a 

 tree, and, when you climb to it, it is rarely found worth the labor of 

 the ascent. In London, at this moment, a thousand public laundries 

 are wanted, before that cleanliness which is next to godliness can ever 

 be recognized by the apostles of health who feel that their mission in 

 the world stands second only on the list of goodly and godly labors 

 for mankind. Gentleman's Magazine. 



